March came and went in a whirlwind of storm and rain that lasted a fortnight. Every one susceptible to atmospheric influences was ill and unhappy, and the wind sobbed and shrieked like the ghosts of centuries crying to be laid. And now, on this first evening, the storm went down, with a little sigh running through the quieted air, like a child’s remembered sob in dreaming. The orange and lemon trees were in full blossom, and the Palace gardens wore “the glory and the freshness of a dream.”
Gustav Reineke stood between the pillars of the Parthenon and watched the sky after sunset. The zenith was clear purple upon which light clouds traced along milky way with edges torn into threadlets of white that curled and lost themselves, shading off to rose upon the eastern horizon. He watched cream deepen into orange, and spread a mist upon the blue, and the azure faint into pearly grey, while the cirrhus arch shifted itself slowly, and dropped behind the hills. The west was a lake of unsullied gold, so pure that the eye could follow the birth of cloud-stains upon it and the flames of crimson and orange striking fire from its heart. Over Lycabettus shone a tremulous radiance, half pink, half opal, and above the blue was shot with silver and green. Upon the hills the shadows were sharply defined by broken lines of light, and the sea under Salamis was a waveless blue gloom.
Gustav had done brave battle with woe, and wore his sorrow nobly. There was nothing of the crushed air of the love-sick swain about him. He stood up straight, and faced the light of day with mournful calm eyes and strong lips, patiently awaiting the revocation of his sentence or its confirmation, and for the moment gave himself entirely up to the study of archæology. He had come that morning to Athens upon invitation, to attend the meeting of the German School of Archæology.
While Gustav is sky-gazing with an open volume of Pausanias in his hand, another young friend of ours is crossing Constitution Square with the intention of strolling towards the Acropolis. Ten days back in Athens, and not one glimpse of Andromache! Very unlike a lover restored to the arms of his mistress does he look, sauntering along with his hands in his pockets and an expression of miserable perplexity on his face. An airy, wide-awake individual, with an anemone in his button-hole, and a glass in his eye, accosts him noisily, and quickly scanning him, remarks aloud upon the utter dejection of his air.
“Ah, Tonton, je suis épris—cette fois pour de bon,” cried Rudolph, desirous of horrifying somebody else as well as himself.
“Encore? Est-ce possible? Vrai?” ejaculated Agiropoulos.
“C’est très vrai.”
“Allons donc, mon cher! Faut-il te féliciter? Epris pour la troisième fois dans autant de mois! Mais c’est effrayant!”
Rudolph’s eyes swept the landscape in dreary assent. He thought it very frightful indeed.
“Pauvre Photini! Pauvre Andromaque,” cried Agiropoulos, taking off his hat and running his plump hand over his well-shorn head, “et pauvre—la dernière. Elle sera toujours à plaindre, celle-là.”